Is the truth important?

[99call]

19 minutes ago, Islandboy said:

I think most people care about the truth, but as @Markspring1978 stated, the truth is very subjective, seemingly more so now than ever. Ask anyone commenting on Twitter, Facebook, etc if they’re speaking the truth. I suspect yes is the answer 100% of the time. As far as actual fact and truth go, I figure this is off by about 95%.

I think the nature of how social media is monitised, and in parallel how people want to suck in views/advertising really governs how flagrant people are with the truth. They want hits, and by any means necessary

In this particular situation, both the press and police did make errors, but only very minor ones.  And thats whats so bonkers about Cummings.  His version of the story to the masses, A, backs up 90% of what the media/police said, and B, he added some additional crazy stuff. 

 

[wineguy]

20 hours ago, El Presidente said:

100% care If it is coming from a partner, friend, family,  colleague. 

I have zero expectation of a politician telling the truth.  Same goes for most media.  

I agree completely!!  ( and this is not a comment on US politics!!)

[bpm32]

11 hours ago, Riverstyx said:

I watched Citizen Kane for the first time a few months ago. And then did a little bit of research. Surprising how corrupt the media was even back then - truth be damned. 

Yeah, Kane/Hearst did everything possible to encourage that war.

Although BBC is probably the only news source I look at anymore, I’m not really sure what scandal 99 is referring to. That said, politicians and their media shills have lied to the people they’re supposed to serve since the beginning of time, including lying to take them into unnecessary and foolhardy wars. You can read about it in Livy or Thucydides. To me, nothing can be as bad as sending people off to war for no good reason. 
 

As far as the media goes specifically, I think historically they’ve been pretty terrible, going back to the colonial era in the US—think Benjamin Franklin Bache and the Philadelphia Aurora, to Hearst in the Spanish-American War, to well......what goes on today. Local journalism is usually okay, and we might have had some kind of brief interlude of good national-level journalism in the Edward R. Murrow era, but that was probably an anomaly.